Traditions

It's October 28, and today I saw decorations for three different holidays for sale at the store. Halloween on clearance, a little section of Thanksgiving in the cornercopia, and Christmas front and center. The season of holidays is upon us, and along with it plenty of traditions for each one.

I love traditions. They make every event more meaningful. Getting a calendar or a pair of pajamas is not very exciting, but when you're receiving it on Christmas Eve, just like you did every year since you were 7, well... suddenly it's a different story.

My problem with traditions is that now I find myself less often on the receiving end of them and more often on the planning end of them. Which really means more often I go without them. You see, I'm not much of a planner. (Just ask my mom how wedding planning went.) Birthdays, holidays, big days... they always creep up on me, and by the time I realize they've arrived and start to think of how to celebrate the arrival, the day is long gone.

So my love for traditions is very much conflicting with my inability to prepare for said traditions. I think this can probably be handled by purchasing a very large, very complete calendar, and marking in advance how to handle each event. But then there's the problem of how to handle each event.

I say problem, but, really, isn't that the fun part? Picking and choosing things you'll repeat year to year? Growing up, we caroled at Christmas. We ate crackers and easy cheez at Thanksgiving (just a prelude yall). We ate out Christmas Eve and prepared a devotional that night. And for some reason, we opened presents and ate cinnamon rolls to the sounds of Randy Travis and the Transiberian Orchestra. Strange? Sure. Did I love it? Definitely.

A friend of mine makes fancy caramel apples each Halloween. Another volunteers at the soup kitchen each Thanksgiving. One eats middle eastern food on floor mats on Christmas Eve.

And now it's time for you to share. I read your blogs. I see your cute Halloween donut tails and leprechaun treasure trails. What are some of your most cherished traditions for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas? Anything you'd like to try but haven't yet? Anyone else enjoy a good dose of easy cheez come Thanksgiving?

Forgive me

But I just had to share. If you think you are into Halloween, just take a look at the possibilities here.

http://www.notmartha.org

And if you don't like it, blame Talida. She introduced me.

Ryan's first baby shower*

It was a couple's shower. For someone Ryan's only met once. Scheduled smack dab in the middle of a BYU football game (against san diego), which was scheduled smack dab in the middle of Ryan's midterms.

I think he must love me.

I didn't even know she was pregnant. Turns out she's 8 months pregnant. That's pretty pregnant.

Highlights:

• Putting together a gift with Eve. We got a complete cloth diapering kit (thank you, craigslist) and recorded a waltz/lullaby Eve composed especially for baby bayles. Since we knew she planned on pureeing her own baby food, we also got a cheap set of baby jars, and, since we knew she would like it, we filled those jars with money.
• Winning a Goonies DVD--gotta love those baby shower games. I attribute our win entirely to Ryan for knowing the answer to this question: Who was Elora Dannon's parent/guardian? (Any takers?)
• Getting frequent texts with game updates--especially those involving a BYU touchdown.

You might say this baby is a bit of a surprise. K's been pregnant only a few days less than she's been married, but she's enjoying the adventure. Her two favorite parts about being pregnant: being especially buoyant at the swimming pool and getting to use less water in the bathtub cause she fills so much more of it. Tempting.

So, for all you mothers out there, what do you think the best part about being pregnant is? Or, what "ultimate sacrifice" has your husband/boyfriend made to make you happy? Anybody out there have a great baby shower gift idea?

*Technically this is his second baby shower, but it's the first he went to knowingly. In Houston, his boss invited us to a party and forgot to mention it was actually a shower for his cousin. Come to think of it, we won two of the prizes at that party too. We should go pro.

Lessons I learned in the weeds

*You can plant bulbs in even the toughest of soils all the way through October, and sometimes even later than that. You can even plant them in the snow, as long as the dirt a few inches below hasn't frozen over yet.

*Weeding is 250% more productive when you're using gloves, a hand shovel, and (if you have 6 foot tall weeds, like me) a big man shovel. These items also work well as protection from the next item on my list.

*Many, many bugs live in our backyard. There are the cute ones: ladybugs, rolly pollies, I'll even throw earthworms in this category. Then there are the ones I've never seen before: weird beetles and other winged things. Add to that at least a dozen varieties of spider, the largest of which made several appearances on different parts of my body, the worst being on my neck crawling toward my chest, later seen hanging off the edge of my ponytail. Yes, I screamed each time. And threw anything that was in my hands at the moment (shovel, gloves, weeds) across the yard (cause that's helpful).

*I don't have the heart to kill any of the bugs. I think it's because I'm on their turf. I'm outside in nature. Their home. I felt so bad every time I dug a hole and found two little earthworms, only to discover that it was really one earthworm, cut neatly in two parts. Poor guy. He sure did a good job on that soil though.

*When you bring a cd player outside to listen to some tunes, and you turn the music way down when your husband calls, and you accidentally forget about it when you go inside to make dinner, and you don't remember it until you start writing this blog post a day later, it's ok. Even though it rained. Because you can just go outside, and it'll still be playing that old mix cd you recently found from sophmore year. ("sad, but pretty," remember, lex?) Just bring it inside, smash all the little bugs off, and wipe it down. (It's ok this time because the bugs are on YOUR turf now.)

Peter Pan

How smart do you feel when you're sitting around with friends, talking about a movie, and you say, "Man. That movie was so good. It would have made a great book." And then everyone stops talking and stares at you. And once you realize the movie was, in fact, already based on a book, you try to save face: "I mean, it would have made a great book series. So there could be another movie. Based on the book. Like this one was."

Confession: I didn't know that all those Peter Pan movies were based on a book, rather, the book, by J.M. Barrie. Since the Disney movie was my first introduction to the boy who never grew up, I just assumed it was the creator as well. Like Pirates of the Caribbean and the theme park ride. (No book there, right? Right?)

Recently, Brenda at work introduced me to the classic, saying she's read it at least twenty times, written extensive analytical papers on it, and memorized full sections. And I'm sitting there thinking, huh. It was a book first?

But what a book. I just finished reading her copy (she was scandalized to think I'd never read it--I didn't dare tell her the whole truth), and now I'm looking forward to buying my own. It's a wonderful book.* Funny. Exciting. Quirky as can be. That J.M. was quite a character. As I was reading, I kept thinking how fun it would be to read to my own children someday. The older ones, mind you. That Captain Hook is a real scoundrel, you know.

If you haven't read it, you really ought to. Do you have any books-turned-movies to recommend (or that you were surprised to discover)? Or have you ever heard of a really good book that was based on a movie? Is a TV series always the last stop on the totem pole?

*Its one downfall: There's no lost boy named Rufio. ("Rufio. Rufio.") TriStar Pictures totally made him up. So disappointing.

To all you writers out there

This is the third part in a four-part series from This American Life's Ira Glass, and it can be applied to any hobby/talent you're working toward. You should probably go ahead and watch the rest of the series too.

Free theatre tickets

Check it out here. They're all sold out in Utah, but you may find more luck in your area of the country.